


the world in a crater

by makurophage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Stars, they're in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 21:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makurophage/pseuds/makurophage
Summary: (on february 13th, 2019, the opportunity rover went silent after a dust-storm blew through its part of mars. how lonely it must have been, how heartbreaking, to die so far away from home.)





	the world in a crater

“bokuto-san?”

 

koutarou starts. “what is it, akaashi?”

 

“i’m starting to think that you might have had a point.”

 

the crater is two-hundred meters deep and at least triple the length across, gray-yellow and fuzzy around the edges. there is no wind, only the dim sheen of dirty light at the rim stretching out its gangly limbs like an old house cat. 

 

koutarou looks up. like this, at the bottom of everything, the sky is reduced to a bite-sized hole in the ceiling.

 

“about what, akaashi?”

 

“you asked me, one time.” his breathing is coming shallower, now, the crackle of his voice sitting low, unguarded, over the channel. “you asked me if i thought it would be romantic to die in space.”

 

koutarou doesn’t laugh because here, where humans are at the mercy of the cosmos, oxygen is a privilege, and there is a precious small amount of it left on the plane of his back. instead, he crawls closer, closer, closer still; weightless, almost. close as he dares.

 

“akaashi, will you marry me?”

 

akaashi closes his eyes and smiles. “aren’t you skipping some steps, bokuto-san?”

 

he looks so small like this. there’s a dusting of yellow stretched over the window of his helmet, a stripe of light falling directly onto his eyelids and spilling across the bridge of his nose. he looks so severely beautiful, and it’s terrible; as if even the universe dares not distinguish the fear in the twist of his mouth from the peace. even when koutarou looks on like this and wants, and feels sick, or despite it, maybe. despite it, after all.

 

“give me your hand.” akaashi does, and koutarou sandwiches it between his own. “can you look at me for a second?”

 

“no.”

 

“what? why not?”

 

“i’ll cry if i look at you, i know it.” koutarou marvels at it: there’s a stray tear already, taking a leisurely stroll down akaashi’s cheek and dipping into his collar. and then there’s another, a soft bead, like liquid mercury. “you better cut this out now, bokuto-san, or i’ll waste all my oxygen crying.”

 

“cut what out?” koutarou wishes so badly to hold his face, to thumb the tear trails out of existence. “i haven’t done anything yet, akaashi keiji, the love of my life.”

 

“you’re an idiot.”

 

koutarou fumbles, links their pinkies, best he can with the thick gloves of their suits. “i now declare you -”

 

akaashi laughs (and just for a second, the sky lights up with reds and oranges), cuts it off in a short gasp as he remembers himself. and then koutarou remembers himself, full of giddiness, and love, and fear, and he throws his cards into the air.

 

“- stupid. i declare you stupid,” akaashi finishes. 

 

“stupid and stupider."

 

“which one’s the stupider?”

 

“let’s find out,” koutarou says, and he’s shamelessly grateful for the panic, the terror on akaashi’s face when he goes to undo the clasps on his helmet.

 

the coin has two sides. 

 

for one, there’s koutarou: bigger and louder than life, louder still than the distress signal that loops through his mind. and then there’s akaashi, smoothed-over surface of a lake, looking like fire, like a dream when you kick it in the shins.

 

and there’s death, for whom koutarou prays even now, even as he breathes in a final breath and throws his helmet off like he’s shedding a tired skin. there’s akaashi, for whom koutarou gives up fear even now, even as he’s struggling not to smile with a finger pressed to his lips.

 

akaashi has stopped crying. koutarou has kicked him in the shins and it hurts, so he has to get him back. he has to fear. he has to shuck off his own helmet, to leap, to embrace everything the universe has to offer with a loving hand, including ends, and endings, and ended.

 

the crater is two-hundred meters deep and still the yellowed light that touches akaashi’s bare face paints him anew, oil and glitter, the uncertain rays of a red star. 

 

koutarou kisses him.

 

they have moved beyond fear, beyond words. this much is certain.

 

it’s so simple, after all.

 

the universe doesn’t hold its breath for anyone. it wakes and stirs; it composes the orchestra of the milky way, and every so often it spits out a force to be reckoned with— call it fate, or fear, or anything in between, but even constellations shall live to tell their stories, and even stars shall learn to fall in love.

**Author's Note:**

> ness sometime in the next 20 years i will get around to fleshing out an Actual Real Fic for your bokuaka stars au, but for now, this.


End file.
